Before
by thestupidgenius1123
Summary: "I hadn't known it was possible to love anything in a place like the School. But no. I had loved him before I even knew what that meant." Oneshot. For desperatelyobvious. Drabble-ish. Rights belong to James Patterson.


**Before**

**A/N: Here's a short, drabble oneshot that wouldn't leave me alone. Like, my ideas won't let me give up fanfiction. I have no idea what that means for my future social life…probably bad things. **

**For desperatelyobvious, my long-distance BFFL. You are wonderful and I cherish you. **

**[Summary: I hadn't known it was possible to love anything in a place like the School. But no. I had loved him before I even knew what that meant. Oneshot. For desperatelyobvious. Drabble-ish.]**

**Disclaimer: I DO NOT own anything! It's all JP. **

**O-N-E-S-H-O-T.**

**S-H-O-R-T.**

**Thanks.**

• • •

I had loved him before I even knew what that meant.

When I'd met him, he was horrible. He had looked like a demon, unleashed into the room with me. I'd always been allowed to roam the room, never confined. Until that first night, when the whitecoat had brought him in and left him. A dark haired, dark-eyed, evil demon. That's what he was. I had fought him because I thought he was there to hurt me, and…after that, we were in cages.

He wasn't mean, despite my first impression of him. He ignored me at first. Ignored everyone. Ignored food and water and insults and violence. He seemed brain-dead. I wondered why they'd stuck a useless, mute demon in my room with me. Was this some kind of test?

They had taught me to talk, and I used that skill on the boy quite a bit. Even when he didn't answer me…it was still better than talking to the wall. Sometimes, just sometimes, his face would change. His eyes would flicker over my face as I told him stories, or his lips would twitch when I talked about how horribly stupid the Erasers were.

One particular time, he look me dead in the eyes; my words had promptly died in my throat with a soft noise.

"Why?"

I gaped at him. Having never heard him talk before, I had no idea what to do. I finally recovered and said, "Why what?"

"Why 'Erasers'?" he sounded out the word, like it was foreign. Jeb had taught me how to talk. He'd taken me into rooms and showed me items and then made me say what they were, to improve my learning I guess.

"Because an eraser is something on the end of a pencil, which makes things disappear," I said, struggling to explain the concept of something so easy. "And…they make everything disappear. The Erasers."

The boy obviously didn't know what that explanation had meant, but he knew what disappear meant. And, stubbornly, he informed me, "They won't make me disappear."

That was when I learned that he wasn't brain-dead. He had fight in him; maybe more than I did. He wasn't stupid; he just knew that not responding was exactly opposite of what they wanted from him. Sure, by complying, I always got better treatment and more privileges, but he refused to play into their hands. His strategy wasn't about survival, it was about power. And if he died, he was going to do it on his own terms, not by doing what they wanted him to do.

It was a valiant tactic for a four year old.

Of course, at the _time_, I didn't realize that. I just thought he was batshit crazy, and so I begged him to eat. I begged him to train with me, when we were put in the tests together. And I begged and begged and begged him not to rebel.

"Why do you care?" he'd spat one day. They'd hit him, hard in the jaw. His spit was bright red.

"Because we're a team."

"A team?"

"A team is people who work together," I said slowly, picking at the dirt crusted on my hands. "We work together, sometimes."

"Do we?"

I looked at him, eyes wide. I didn't answer because I didn't know what to say.

I honestly don't know what changed. One day, they got tired of taunting him and they taunted me instead. I wasn't used to it. Jeb was usually there to make sure I wasn't abused or violated, but that day he wasn't. They started kicking my cage around, saying disgusting things to me that I hadn't understood then but did now. And trust me, now it made my blood boil.

Before I'd even seen what had happened, his hand had shot out between the bars of his cage, grabbed the Eraser's arm, and yanked it, hard. The bulky Eraser fell to the ground. Before he could realize what had happened, the boy had breathed, "Don't hurt her."

And he had sunk his teeth into the monster's hand.

From then on, it was an unspoken agreement. He protected me, I protected him. We were a team.

"You think standing up for him will save him? You think that's honorable? That's _foolish_! Getting attached is _foolish_! Trusting is _foolish_!"

The hand that had swung at me had hit me hard in the face and it had been the worst pain I'd ever felt. Then that same hand had hit him, too. And we'd both apologized after that; me for not protecting him, him for provoking the monster enough to get us both hit.

My eye had throbbed and I had wanted to cry, but I had grabbed his hand and said, "I don't care."

We named ourselves. We learned each other, covered each others' weaknesses. Jeb taught us a lot together, added the others to our group. But there became this bond between us that had never been there before; a bond I had never had with anything or anyone.

As I grew up, in that hellhole of a place, I realized that I loved him. Not romantically and not even lustfully; I just loved him. I loved him for the hope he gave me, and the companionship, and the trust. I loved him for being everything I hadn't known existed in the world.

And while his eyes weren't a brown that melted my heart or made my head spin, they were a comforting dark brown that told me _it's okay, I'm here. _While his touch didn't make my toes curl, it made me feel solid; it made me feel anchored to the world. While his voice didn't yet make my heart beat too fast, it filled me with strength in my hardest times.

I hadn't known it was possible to love anything in a place like the School.

But no.

No, I had loved him before I even knew what that meant.

So when Jeb came to take me away, I hadn't had any other choice. There was no future outside of the School without him, or without them. I knew that. Jeb was shocked, and tried to force me to leave without them, but I'd stood firm, right in front of his cage, and said, "Not without him."

And I think Fang had loved me, then, too.

**A/N: I have no idea where this came from. Review? **


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